Blastronaut

Ideal. That's me checking train times to Perth. Schools are back on Wednesday so I might not have to resort to such drastic measures but it's good have options for a bit of respite.

The true pro's simply feign illness, injury or just sheer ineptitude and get gullible friends and family to do all the legwork. I can't be sure but I think I learned this simple lifehack the hard way. From my in-laws.

There was a boozer I used to frequent up in Perth that was a bit like this. First time we went in the toilets were flooded, opened the door to see about 9 headcases in there shoulder to shoulder, ankle deep in piss doing lines off the top of the hand-dryer. Barman told us the cleaner was on holiday that week so the bogs would likely stay flooded for at least another few days. Proper shithole but it became a regular haunt since it had the magical combination of cheap pints, live music and a pool table. I'll never forget my old man phoning me once totally out the blue "mind that pub you were talking about the other day, is it down a wee ally, opposite a crèche or nursery or something?" "Aye it is, how?". Panic in his voice: "is it called The Grill?" "Aye that's the one. Actually I'm here right now" "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DRINKING IN THERE FOR? I'VE JUST SEEN IT ON CRIMEWATCH!". It's a good few decades since I've been in, but these summer holidays have been brutal and the kids are seriously testing my patience so I'm now seriously wondering if the pub and crèche are both still open.

Totally appreciate this is sarcasm, but I have huge doubts Gemmill would've moved anything. He likely just has a new address and somebody else did all the heavy lifting.

Man for what little it's worth, my anxiety has been through the roof since we moved house at the start of the year, probably wouldn't take much to tip me over the edge just now but I'm being a stubborn fucker and refusing to take any SSRI's because I hate the bastard things. Mental illness is indeed fucking everywhere. I think the biggest problem is that most folk (especially men) just don't talk about it, which I'm also guilty of. Ta for the heads up, though. I think I'll give that show a swerve for now.

I've got four and will attest to the old adage that you'll likely be more lenient and nonchalant about these things based on how many kids you've got. Used to walk a solid 3/4 of a mile to and from school unattended. Funny that I couldn't imagine letting my own kids do the same, but we grew up in different worlds. Still see it though. My daughter's pal is one of ten (no word of a lie) and before we moved she'd often turn up at the door with her siblings and they'd all play in the garden, which was fine like, until she turned up her (then) youngest sister who was still a toddler in nappies. Two. It's no like they lived next door either. (copied and pasted from Mumsnet).

It's decided then. McDs for the kids dinner tomorrow night.

Good to know, I look out for it. I was gifted a bottle of the Sherry Cask a few years ago and the first sip I think I got a bit angry and probably uttered words to the effect of "WHERE'S THE FUCKING PEAT?" but after another few mouthfuls had calmed down and found myself really liking it, so I'll pick it up sometimes if it's cheaper than Black Label. Our local McDs is next door to a supermarket. I'll typically just order get a coffee and then abandon the missus and kids while they're eating their processed shite to go and browse the whisky isle. Much better system.

Tamnavulin Sherry Cask Edition might be worth a look in the cheap as chips Speyside single malts if you're not looking something peaty. Fairly unremarkable but dangerously smooth. Usually easy to find at £20-£30 a bottle. I'd probably drink it far more often if it was even slightly smokier.

Im not massively fussy but prefer a Brazilian if I'm honest. More seriously, I think this thread has spoken that Black Label is the champion of good quality affordable blends, with Chivas being a close second. I'll sometimes settle for Aldi's Highland Black, Jameson Black Barrel or even Grouse Smokey Black as an alternative if I'm feeling particularly cheap but something about the smokey peat flavours feels a bit artificial and the hangovers are way worse than from Mr Walkers Amber Restorative.

Never occured to me until now that this was the inspiration behind the final Champs album cover. Ammusingly, there was a track on the previous album named "I am the Album Cover".

Some serious Yin and Yang going on in that photo. I'd probably feel more comfortable with the black one but after a quick Google search the black winter doesn't seem like it would be up my street either. Veering off topic, in lieu of pedal building lately I've been on a big midi controller kick thanks to scoring a few cheap "broken" ones that turned out to be fine. Got a Nektar Panorama P1 for £20 thinking I'd repair it and sell it on, but it's a absolute keeper and only turned out to need a factory reset. Total game changer for me when I'm dicking about with cubase.

Few years ago I was on a train and there's was a group sat a few seat behind me drinking and being loud and obnoxious as fuck. I did the same, headphones in to drown the cunts out. When I stood up to get off the train and realised they were a group of my mates and we were all going to the same gig.

Just the usual exercise in limiting the spectrum of any debate.

Nice one! How's the album shaping up btw?

From what I've gathered they're in the process of taking Rostov having already taken Voronezh, and have another convoy heading towards Moscow from Voronezh.

Good find. Union never called for a boycott as far as I'm aware, just called out the Murray family shithousery and recommended performers insist on getting paid up front this year.

First paragraph there just about broke my brain. The idea that they'd flashed their paps for a cameo in the hbo prison drama that revolutionised modern television. Fuck sake man. I've watched that whole series at least a dozen times. All I remember is J.k Simmons, Carmela Soprano, Tobias and Adebisi.

Nice. Ive never been one to get massively hung up on a lot of that, but I've long done the "like how that sounds but not how it's feels" thing and swapped pickups. One of my main goto guitars is a 20yo beater, pretty sure the neck pickup came from a Kerry King BC Rich V, can't remember for the life of me what the bridge pickup is but it's not the stock one and I love it. Another quick heads up on capacitors, 47nF, 0.047uF and "473" are all exactly the same values. "Orange drops" and old paper in oil caps seem to be the most fetishised but it's all a load of wank. Modern ceramic or film capacitors will do the same thing with tighter tolerances for much less money.

Cool, what pickups did you get? Active or passive? No rules, only guidelines. Typically run with 500k pots for humbuckers (lower values generally help tame bright single coils) and for capacitors only go for lower than the stock value of you want LESS treble roll off. At ten the sound is the same. Higher value capacitor = more range between O and 10 on the tone dial. No need to go down those rabbit holes and overcomplicate it. Saying that, don't buy into any of the orange drop/Sprague capacitor pish. Nowt against them, but ceramic disc or film capacitors will do exactly the same job for orders of magnitude cheaper, ceramic disc can go microphonic though.

On the off chance they are found I hope the cunts get billed for the cost of the search effort. In the more like scenario they're not found I sincerely hope the media coverage quickly switches to the same tone they adopt when covering the thousand of people that drown trying to flee desperate living conditions. I don't mean to sound cold or callous but I am, so it comes out that way.

I think it's genuinely a home game tactic at this point and a wonderfully effective one at that. To quote wee John McGinn after beating Spain "the grass was a bit long and the pitch was a bit sticky but this was in Scotland, not Spain! That's the benefit of being the home team. I think we handled the game very maturely." Fucking hilarious though. For most of the hour and a half the game was stopped there was barely 6 folk out there trying to essentially squeegee the entire pitch. At one point one of the stewards randomly joined in with a leaf blower.

Ah shit 16th is the day my oldest starts highschool and the youngest starts primary school. On the one hand it's the perfect time as they're both going to have so much to talk about when they get home. On the other hand, I really do not want to be....Fuck it actually that's perfect. I'm going. Sure I mentioned the Doune the Rabbit Hole festival grift here a few months back? That's it been formally cancelled, hearing all sold tickets won't be refunded. The "new owners" are taking action against Bectu for lower than expected ticket sales. Hilarious as everyone I knew thought the whole charade was a massive ponzi-style grift. Murray was just boasting about how well he was doing financially less than a week ago too. Fucking charlatans.

Only 30 minutes into the Scotland v Georgia game and it's just occured to me that the only goal so far was scored 2 hours ago I'm gonnae be quite rough tomorrow.

Fuck that. I'd even have misgivings about gracing that cunts name with haemorrhoids.